Extensive Reading in English as Foreign Language by Adolescents and Young Adults: A Meta-Analysis

A review of studies of extensive reading adolescents
and young adults studying English as a foreign language revealed a strong and
consistent positive effect for both tests of reading comprehension and cloze
tests. Students provided with more access to reading (titles per student) did
significantly better on tests of reading comprehension, but there was no
relationship between access and performance on cloze tests.

Despite the consistently positive results of extensive reading programs,
there still seem to be doubts as to its effectiveness: Study after study says
it works, but very few language programs have adopted it. This paper takes
another look at the research, focusing on studies of extensive reading using
adolescent and adult students of English as a foreign language. Older
students of English as a foreign language (EFL) students are an appropriate
group to study for both practical and theoretical reasons. Mastery of English
is, of course, crucial for nearly all activities that involve any kind of international
communication. Also, focusing on foreign language removes one potential
confound, the easy availability of English outside the classroom.

There are two goals of this
meta-analysis. The first is to determine whether free reading has an overall positive
effect. The second goal is to determine the factors that contribute to the
overall effect. We will be able to accomplish the first goal and take some
steps toward reaching the second goal.

In all studies, time was set
aside for self-selected reading. Studies in which a significant percentage of
reading was assigned are not included here (e.g., Lee 2005b; Lao and Krashen
2000), and only studies that included reading tests (see below) are included.

Two kinds of reading tests were considered, cloze tests and tests of
reading comprehension. The impact of extensive reading was determined by
computing effect sizes. The usual formula for the effect size is the mean of
the experimental group minus the mean of the comparison group, all divided by
the pooled standard deviation, based on posttest scores. This formula was used
here, and when possible the effect of the pretest was taken into consideration
by subtracting the effect size of the pretest from that of the post-test. The
mean effect size for all studies is a measure of the overall impact of
extensive reading.

Data on two
factors that could influence the impact of extensive reading was included in the
analysis: Access to reading material and duration of treatment.

Access

For first language development, access to reading
material has been consistently shown to be a predictor of how much students
read and how well they read (Krashen 2004). In this analysis, book access was
represented by total titles available to students, and the number of book
titles per student.

Duration

Previous reviews have shown that longer SSR programs tend to be more
effective than shorter programs (Krashen 2001). Duration is included here in
terms of the number of weeks, months, or academic years the program lasted.
This is a crude measure because it does not consider the amount of time set
aside for reading each day or week.

A number of other factors are
undoubtedly relevant to predicting the impact of extensive reading programs,
but their inclusion will await additional studies, when methods are developed
for representing their contributions quantitatively.

Results

Table 1 presents data on access, duration of the program, and the
results of cloze tests and reading comprehension tests.

Details of the studies, as well
as notes on effect size calculations, are presented in table 2. In some cases,
effect sizes were calculated for each experimental group in a given
publication. This was not possible in other cases. Thus, the average values
calculated here should be considered approximate. For studies with no results
listed, it was either not possible to calculate effect sizes from the data
provided or cloze tests or reading comprehension were not used as measures.

In Liu (2007), sample size and
titles per student were calculated on the basis of students and titles per
class. More than one class was involved in these studies. The Liu (2007) effect
size is an average calculated from five experimental classes and 12 comparison
classes over four years.

For Yuan and Nash (1992), the
effect size in table 2 is the average of three methods of calculating the score
(from the t-score of gains, comparison of mean gain scores, pre- and
post-tests).

The reading comprehension test
used in K. Smith (2006) also included usage and listening, and was given five
months after the course ended.

In Sims (1996), two different
experimental classes were used. The number of titles was estimated from the
total number of books: 700 books were provided, and “most” were separate titles
(Sims, personal communication).

Table 2 Access, duration, and effect sizes

study

N

titles

titles/S

Duration

ES Cloze

ES RC

Yuan & Nash 1992

37

200

5.4

one year

0.38

Sims 1996

30

550

18.3

one year

0.81

Sims,1996

30

550

18.3

one year

0.65

Mason retakers

30

100

3.3

one sem

0.702

Mason Jr college

31

200

6.4

one year

1.47

Mason university

40

200

5

one year

1.11

Mason: response L1

40

550

13.75

one year

0.24

0.61

Mason: response L2

36

550

15.28

one year

0.63

0.48

Lituanas et al. 2001

30

6 months

1.7

Bell 2001

14

2000

142.9

one year

1.31

3.14

Sheu 2003

31

57

1.84

0.71

Sheu 2003

34

55

1.62

1.04

Lee 2005a

65

215

3.3

12 weeks

0.24

Hsu & Lee 2005

47

354

7.5

one year

0.58

K. Smith 2006

51

500

9.8

one year

0.47

0.39

Lee 2006

41

1200

29.3

one year

1.02

Hsu & Lee 2007

47

500

10.6

3 years

K. Smith 2007

41

500

12.2

one year

0.56

Liu 2007

46

450

9.8

one year

1.59

Effect size = Cohen’s d.

All effect sizes take pretests into account (ES
post-test – ES pretest), except for Mason (Mason and Krashen, 1997) for reading
comprehension which was based only on the post-test.

n = number of students in extensive reading group;titles/S = number of separate book titles per
student

Mason studies from Mason and Krashen (1997).

Mason: response L1 - students wrote summaries in Japanese; response
L2 - students wrote summaries in English

Number of titles in Mason, response in L1, response in
L2 from Mason (personal communication)

Inspection of table 1 shows that there was little
variability in duration in the studies in this sample. Most studies lasted for
one academic year. Thus, duration was not examined as a predictor of effect
sizes.

The relationship between total titles and titles per
student was strong (r = .91). Thus, only titles per student was used in the
analysis.

Titles per student was modestly correlated with cloze
test effect sizes, and the correlation was close to statistical significance (r
= .35, n= 13, p = .12, one-tail). Because of the influence of sample size, a
multiple regression was done with sample size and titles/students as predictors
(table 3). The relationship between access and reading comprehension was not
significant in this analysis.

Eight studies provided data for both reading
comprehension and titles per student. In contrast to the cloze test results,
the two were nearly perfectly correlated (r = .95). Because of the influence of
sample size on scores of reading comprehension, the impact of titles per student
on reading comprehension scores was investigated using multiple regression,
controlling for sample size. As presented in table 4, number of titles per
student was a highly significant predictor.

According to these results, there is a strong impact of access: Setting
the predicted number of students to the mean of the eight studies in table 2 (n
= 33.3), doubling the number of titles per student (from 27 to 88) would
increase the effect size for reading more than a third of a standard deviation
(from .98 to 1.36).

Summary and Discussion

The clearest result of this study is that extensive
reading is consistently effective. The average effect size for both measures
was over .70. There were no negative effect sizes; the smallest effect size was
.24.

The attempt to study factors contributing to
successful extensive reading results has clearly only just begun. Data from
eight studies using tests of reading comprehension showed that providing more
titles per student had a substantial effect on the outcome of the study, but
this relationship was not present for tests of reading comprehension.

It is surprising that even this much of a relationship
between access and the effect of extensive reading was found, because so many
other factors are probably at work.

First, access defined as titles per student, as noted
above, is a crude measure. A modest number of books, if they are the right
ones, can have a strong impact, and supplying large quantities of books will
not help if the books are not interesting and comprehensible.

Also, as noted earlier, other factors undoubtedly play
a role. These include

1.The duration of
the program (Krashen 2001).

2.The length of
time and frequency of each reading session, i.e., massed versus distributed
sessions.

3. The extent of comprehension checking: Krashen (2007) has hypothesized
that more frequent and more detailed comprehension checking will result in less
interest in reading and less progress in literacy development.

4. Whether reading is encouraged by the use of read-alouds, conferencing, and discussion, all of which have empirical support (Krashen 2004).

5. Whether students are under pressure because of heavy academic loads
and exams. Those in SSR programs do more pleasure reading on their own outside
of class (Sims 1996), and it is likely that this contributes to the success of
the program. Pressure from exams and other courses can reduce the amount of
time students devote to reading. According to student reports, this was the
case in Hsu and Lee (2007).There
are, at the moment, not enough studies to warrant a meta-analytic review of extensive
reading studies done with children acquiring a second language. All studies
using children that we have seen, however, have produced impressive evidence
for “the power of reading” (Aranha 1985; Elley 1991; Elley and Mangubhai 1983;
Cho and H. Y. Kim 2004; Cho and H. Kim 2005), with the exception of Williams
(2007).

Conclusion

This review provides more evidence that in-school
self-selected reading works. It must be emphasized that effect sizes were
uniformly positive and typically quite impressive. In-school self-selected
reading is effective and its effects are robust

NOTE: After this paper appeared, an improved a method of calculating effect sizes
that takes pretest scores into consideration was developed by Morris (2008): Estimating Effect Sizes From Pretest-Posttest-Control
Group Designs. Organizational
Research Methods 11(2):
364-386. Morris concluded that his analysis "favored an effect size
based on the mean pre-post change in the treatment group minus the mean
pre-post change in the control group, divided by the pooled pretest standard
deviation" (p. 364).

Elley, W., and E.
Mangubhai. 1983. The impact of reading on second lan- guage learning. Reading
Research Quarterly 19, 53–67.

Hsu, Y. Y., and
S. Y. Lee. 2005. Does extensive reading also benefit junior college students in
vocabulary acquisition and reading ability? The Proceedings of the 22nd
International Conference in English Teaching and Learning. Taipei: Crane
Publishing Company, pp. 116–27.

Liu, C. K. 2007.
A reading program that keeps winning. In Selected Papers from the Sixteenth
International Symposium on English Teaching, English Teachers’
Association - Republic of China. Taipei: Crane Publishing Company.

Mason, B., and S.
Krashen. 1997. Extensive reading in English as a foreign language. System 25:
91–102.

Smith, K. 2007.
The effect of adding SSR to regular instruction. In Selected Papers from the
Sixteenth International Symposium on English Teaching, English Teachers’
Association—Republic of China. Taipei: Crane Publishing Company.

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